Index

Foreword

This year, Protein and Peptide Letters is in its 20th anniversary. Over the years,
this journal played an important role not only in the illumination of protein and
peptide science, but also in the development of several generations of protein and
peptide scientists around the globe. As of June 12, 2014, WEB of Science listed
2,265 papers published in Protein and Peptide Letters that were cited 12,405
times. Curiously, although the number of annually published papers reached a
plateau in 2005-2006, the number of annual citations of the papers published in
Protein and Peptide Letters keeps its steady growth.

The first volume of “Frontiers in Protein and Peptide Science” edited by Prof. Ben
Dunn represents an exciting collection of 11 papers which are the revised and
updated versions of the manuscripts originally published in Protein and Peptide Letters. Papers for this volume were selected based on the number of citations that
the original articles received. Therefore, the resulting volume represents a set of
“the best of the best of the best” studies extracted from the Protein and Peptide
Protein and Peptide Letters and covers a broad variety of topics ranging from protein function, to
protein folding, and to computational methods for prediction of protein structural
and functional properties.

Curiously, some authors of the best performing publications are frequent guests in
Protein and Peptide Letters, whereas others published just one “hit”. Papers
included in this volume talk about structure and functional properties of
hemoglobins from snakes, discuss major enzymes of the endocannabinoid
metabolism, represent anti-apoptotic and oncogenic functions of Hsp27, show the
results of the molecular modeling of CYP2C19 SNPs, represent new updates
related to understanding of the folding rates and folding nuclei of globular
proteins, discuss the roles of heat shock response agents in diseases, talk about
prediction of protein secondary structure content, provide analysis of sequence
divergence in metabolic proteins of Plasmodium falciparum, and show how
computational tools can be used to predict protein subcellular locations, types of
membrane proteins, and types of Golgi-resident protein. The volume will be
particularly useful to basic investigators, applied scientists, and clinicians
interested in the latest advances in the field of protein and peptide research.

Vladimir N. Uversky
University of South Florida
USA

Preface

The first issue of Protein and Peptide Letters (Vol 1 issue 1) was published in July
1994. Since then, this international journal has grown steadily to become widely
recognized for publishing excellent work in the field of proteins and peptide
research. The Aims and Scope of the journal include a range of topics, but the
journal is firmly rooted in studies of the properties of the title molecules and their
interactions. Over the years we have welcomed a truly international group of
authors and provided a valuable service to many new scientists publishing their
first papers in English.

As we have moved through the years, the popularity of the journal and its content
has increased. Recently, an analysis was done of the citation record for the past
few years for all published papers. From that listing we selected the the top 100
papers receiving the highest citation numbers. Those authors were invited to
submit revised and updated manuscripts; the ones received were subjected to a
new round of peer review, revisions were requested, and the final manuscripts
were edited by the editor. The resulting top papers were selected to be included in
this first volume of “Frontiers in Protein and Peptide Science”. Future volumes
will follow based on a continuing analysis of citation history.

I would like to thank all contributors to this volume for their efforts to update their
papers with new information and references and for their efforts to prepare the
new manuscripts according to the format specified in the invitation to submit. I
would also like to thank two managers at Bentham Science publishing, Dur-e-
Shahnaz Shafi, who worked with me to initiate this book and Sara Yaser, who
took over the book and saw it through to completion.

Ben M. Dunn
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University of Florida
College of Medicine
USA

List of Contributors

Editor(s):

Ben M. Dunn Department of Biochemistry and Molecular BiologyCollege of MedicineUniversity of FloridaUSA

Hao Lin Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of EducationCenter of BioinformaticsSchool of Life Science and TechnologyUniversity of Electronic Science and Technology of ChinaChengdu, 610054China

Hui Ding Department of PhysicsSchool of SciencesCenter for Genomics and Computational BiologyHebei United UniversityTangshanChina

Jing-Fang Wang College of Life Science and BiotechnologyShanghai Jiaotong UniversityShanghai 200240China